Mafia Defector Says He Lost His Faith

Published: March 2, 1994

(Page 2 of 2)

According to Mr. Accetturo, the Lucchese family prohibited the induction of new soldiers from the early 1960's until the mid 1970's, trying to maintain secrecy and prevent law-enforcement infiltration. Although he ran several rackets for the family for almost a decade, Mr. Accetturo said it was 1976 when he formally took the Mafia oath of omerta, the swearing of loyalty and secrecy. Saint's Picture Is Burned

He said that Joseph Abate of Margate, N.J., who was the head of the Lucchese family in New Jersey in the 1960's and early 1970's, and Michael Pappadio, a Lucchese soldier, drove him to a house in New York City for a meeting with Anthony (Ducks) Corallo, then the boss of the family. At a simple ceremony, he said, a picture of a saint was burned and he intoned: "May I burn in hell like this saint if I betray my friends."

For Mr. Accetturo, the induction "was the greatest honor of my life."

Reflecting on his activities in the Lucchese family, Mr. Accetturo said that like most Mafia members and their associates, he flourished in the 1960's and 1970's. Many law-enforcement officials acknowledge that feeble law-enforcement efforts from the 1930's through the 1970's generally failed to check the growth of the nation's 20 or so crime families.

The nation's five largest organized-crime groups -- the Lucchese, Gambino, Genovese, Colombo and Bonanno families -- originated in New York City and operate throughout the metropolitan region. The Lucchese family is the only one, law-enforcement experts say, that had three semi-independent factions: Brooklyn-Queens and Long Island, Manhattan-Bronx and New Jersey.

Mr. Accetturo, who had a home in Livingston, N.J., moved to Hollywood, Fla., in 1970 to avoid testifying before the New Jersey State Investigation Commission.

He said that Mr. Corallo had effectively put him in charge of the New Jersey faction in the early 1970's even before his formal induction and that he was named a capo soon after taking the oath of omerta. At most, he said, the "made" members of the Lucchese group in New Jersey numbered 20, but more than 100 associates worked for him. He used a trusted aide, Michael Taccetta, as his street boss in New Jersey, communicating with him by telephone and at meetings in New York City. Juror Was Bribed

"In them days, we were disciplined and coordinated," he said. "The other guys weren't," he added, referring to law-enforcement agencies.

The equations began to change in the 1980's and the indictments came thick and fast, Mr. Accetturo said. In 1985 he and 19 other Lucchese members and associates were indicted in Newark on Federal racketeering and narcotics trafficking charges.

All 20 defendants were acquitted in 1988 but last September, Mr. Taccetta admitted bribing a juror in the trial. Mr. Accetturo, in the interview, declined to say if had known about the bribe and possible jury tampering.

After the 1988 acquittal, Mr. Accetturo was imprisoned for 20 months for refusing to testify before the New Jersey Investigation Commission.

Further trouble for Mr. Accetturo emerged when a life sentence was imposed on Mr. Corallo after his conviction in New York on Federal racketeering charges in 1987. In 1988, Vittorio Amuso replaced Mr. Corallo as boss of the Lucchese family and he named Anthony Casso as underboss.

Mr. Amuso and Mr. Casso, Mr. Accetturo said, began cutting into his independence and demanded larger shares of the loot than Mr. Corallo had taken. Mr. Corallo, he insisted, rarely asked for more than $10,000 a year while the new bosses wanted almost every penny raked in by the New Jersey faction.

He said that when he resisted, Mr. Amuso and Mr. Casso also put out a contract to kill him and his son, Anthony Jr., falsely claiming that he "was a rat."

"They had no training, no honor," Mr. Accetturo said of Mr. Amuso and Mr. Casso. "All they want to do is, kill, kill, get what you can, even if you didn't earn it."

Mr. Amuso, 58, was convicted in 1992 on Federal racketeering and murder charges and sentenced to life imprisonment. Mr. Casso, 52, will go on trial later this month in Brooklyn on Federal racketeering and murder charges.

Mr. Accetturo said state prosecutors had made no promises of a possible reduced sentence for his cooperation and possible testimony at criminal trials. But his sentencing has been postponed and prosecutors said that the extent of his cooperation would be made known to the sentencing judge. (New Jersey law-enforcement officials, who spoke when granted anonymity, said that Mr. Accetturo had given them a wealth of information, including details of secret Lucchese family holdings in construction companies and real-estate development projects in New Jersey, North Carolina and Florida.)

Switching sides, Mr. Accetturo said, was eased somewhat by the presence of Robert T. Buccino, deputy chief of a unit in the attorney general's office that has been on his trail for last eight years. Mr. Accetturo and Mr. Buccino were boyhood friends in Orange.

Claiming he was remorseful about his criminal activities, Mr. Accetturo said he wanted to warn potential Mafia recruits that the organization "is no longer an honorable secret society, there is no glamour like in the movies and most of the families are becoming street gangs."

"Either you wind up in the can, your life finished like me, or dead," he said.

Photo: "The new generation that is running things threw all the old rules out the window," said Anthony Accetturo, a crime family leader who became a Government witness. "The key word is greed. All they care about is money, not honor." (William E. Sauro/The New York Times)